Argosy All-Story Weekly, July 11, 1925 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE BIG GUN. mention of it in writin’. That was Andrew Bullitt—th’ ekal o’ dukes an’ N’Yawk financiers, an’ his word’s good as theirs, an’ better. “But when this here Vanderbilt died ‘thout recordin’ Andrew’s partnership in a property they had together out West wuth *bout two hundred millions, more or less, his estate dragged Andrew on here into N’ Jersey t’ th’ Federal c’ot, an’ they got their agent, Hertsky, father o’ th’ Mr. Harper we know, t’ clap a summons ontew him, an’ then take a snap judgment ag’in’ him as bein’ non-existent. I was in c’ot with Mr. Owsley, holdin’ his papers in ’nother case the day they done it. “Twas Mr. Owsley explained to Andrew what they done to him. They spent "bout a year together tryin’ tew undo it, but *twarn’t no use. An’ Andrew made no holler. He’d had a hundred millions an’ he’d lost it. He’d been friend an’ partner to a duke an’ a Vanderbilt, an’ he settled down here an’ married yer ma jest th’ same an’ never mentioned it. He was thet kind of a man—th’ salt o’ th’ earth.” Cyrus wiped a tear from his eye. The judge coughed and rose ponderously, saying it was time to go. Then he added, as if it were an SreupCue a second pur- pose in his visit: “‘ Swartz and Moheim, the butchers down tew th’ corner,” he offered, “ need some one .t’ drive their cart, an’ I though mebby—” ~ Cyrus looked up quickly, his eyes moist. “Why, judge, I couldn’t make enough driv- ing a butcher’s cart to pay all I owe.” “You don’t owe nothin’—do you?” “T owe all that father owed. “Not on yer tintype. Mr. Harper’s judg- ment wiped out all he owed at the bank, an’ there hain’t more’n a hundred dollars besides.” “But the gallery won’t cover the judg- - ment.” “°Tain’t yer lookout.” Cyrus shook his head gravely and then said, with slow effort, “ I’ll pay every cent. Father had bad luck. That was all. I’ve a long life ahead. I'll turn the scales.” “But,” the judge protested, “ nobody’s lookin’ tew you. This ain’t China. You jest look out fer yerself. An’ think it over. 165 Mebby in th’ mornin’ ye’ll want tew go see Swartz and Moheim. If anybody bothers ye, legal, come tew me. *Iwon’t cost ye a cent.” He stamped down the stairs and soon the outer door of the gallery closed with a bang. Cyrus went down and locked it, and then returned and sat under the lamp. The silence and the loneliness became unbear- able. He turned on the radio. He tuned into the middle of a sentence. “—inventive youth of America,” clearly came the voice as if speaking to him alone, ‘“should be given every opportunity to develop its ideas. I believe that out of un- trained youth will come many of the great developments of the immediate future. Believing this, I intend to offer every pos- sible facility to every young inventor who lacks the tools and appliances to develop his plans. Hereafter, every morning at nine o’clock, in my office in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I will receive any young man who has a new mechanical idea he wants to see perfected.” Cyrus turned out and sat for a long time thinking. He was no longer either destitute or lonely. He was very much alive with new hope. Before he went to bed he set his alarm clock for. 3.15, after studying a road map of New Jersey. By the new cement high- way, only eight miles off, Brooklyn was not quite a hundred and fifty miles from Linkersport. — CHAPTER III. YOUTHFUL INVENTORS. YRUS was dressed the next morning before the first faint stirrings of the earliest dawn. There was no really good reason why he should not have lit the kerosene lamp, but he felt he wanted to do all he had to do and be off before any one in Linkersport was up. He would “ run away and put something over on them.” Besides, he had to be in Brooklyn well before nine’ o’clock. All his spare clothes he made bundle. There were some unders, . shirt almost new, his Sunday tie, and his Sand i - Ks: — comicboo &